


healing hurt

by mako_lies (wingeddserpent)



Series: The Ruin [13]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild on the Comfort tbh, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sharing a Bed, mentioned OT4 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 09:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15045944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingeddserpent/pseuds/mako_lies
Summary: All the forgiveness in the world isn’t enough to banish him. Not yet. Not till they take back the Crystal and—somehow—use it to banish the daemons. Ardyn slithers into that new gap between Prompto and Noctis like so much choking smoke, a specter haunting their memories.





	healing hurt

**Author's Note:**

> For Promptis Week's prompt: sharing a bed. 
> 
> Notes: this work contains references to past torture (both physical and psychological). YMMV, but contains light non-sexual masochism. 
> 
> Part of my overarching universe, where chocobros OT4 is a thing and Ravus lives.

All the forgiveness in the world isn’t enough to banish _him_. Not yet. Not till they take back the Crystal and —somehow—use it to banish the daemons. Ardyn slithers into that new gap between Prompto and Noctis like so much choking smoke, a specter haunting their memories.

Even here, in the “safe” dormitories, Noctis can still hear his slimy deceits. His affected lilt that brushes like fingers across the scar aching on Noctis’s lower back. Makes him shudder at the clammy intimacy Ardyn forces like breathing. He can’t imagine how Prompto must feel, but judging from the still fading fingerprints yellowed on his throat—it can’t be pleasant.

Noctis aches to ask.

Longs to take whatever hurt Prompto will share with him and alleviate it. But not yet. Not in this nightmare keep, where Ardyn strung Prompto up and strung Noctis along. Too much horror. Too fresh. The talking can wait, until the sun shines down on them again.

Still. Still—he can’t—they’d almost lost Prom and whatever balm of forgiveness Prompto gave (so damn easily, like always) it was still Noctis’s fault.

_—Prompto, restrained in metal, dripping red red red across his exposed skin, table bloated with knives and hammers and devices Noctis didn’t even have words for, all slick with blood, the concrete beneath Prompto stained black—_

He catches Prompto’s hand in both of his. “Hey,” he whispers, even though he’s sure none of the others are sleeping. “Share a bed with me?”

They’re tiny. Smaller than outpost beds, and made out of metal, but he needs to feel Prompto. Feel that he’s solid. That all those dead MTs Ardyn had morphed into Prompto’s image were just images, that it wasn’t Prompto’s face under the mask of every MT Noctis dismantled.

Noctis has to feel the heat of his unbroken skin. He’s not sure how Gladio and Ignis aren’t fighting him for the privilege, but who knows what Ardyn put them through in their search for Noctis. They haven’t said, and it’s not time to push. Yet.

(And, as ever, Ravus sits silent at the door, ramrod straight in the chair, and somehow his vigilance _does_ make him feel something like safe. )

Prompto blinks at the bed, eyes glassy and almost lifeless, and it reminds Noctis of the dead MTs before they evaporated into so much tainted smoke, and then he grasps Noctis’s wrist. His eyes wet with the unshed sheen of tears. “Yeah,. Please. Noct, I need to be real. I need you to believe I’m real. And I—I need you. I need you to be real, too.” His voice is raw, rasping with emotion—

_Prompto’s shrill, broken screams played over and over the loudspeakers, “no no no please no more, please, please please please, I’m sorry, please,” and Ardyn’s voice, mockingly gentle, “Just a little more, darling, you’re_ _suffering oh_ _so_ _beautifully_ _.” The darling so cutting, so_ _revolting_ _, because that was what Ignis called Prompto,_ _that was Ignis’s word,_ _and Prompto screamed, until Noctis forced himself from the chair, out of the dormitory, and the speakers went_ _to static_ _, finally, with Ardyn saying, “Good, Noct. We’re waiting for you. Keep moving, won’t you?” And every time Noctis tried to catch his breath—every time he stalled, the screaming started again, pulling him along like a puppet._

Prompto whispers, “It’s okay, Noct,” and he swipes a tear from Noctis’s eye, so comforting and gentle, and this is going all wrong. But the last however long of creeping through the hallways, without rest, and the Ring and the screaming and Ardyn’s puppeteering, it’s drained Noctis of everything. He should be comforting Prompto, and instead, instead, he buries his face into Prompto’s shoulder, except Prompto hisses in discomfort, and Noctis jerks back from him until Prompto’s grip on his wrist pulls him back. Insistent. He’s not letting go.

“I… My arms are kind of sore. From the whole being locked over my head. It’s okay. I just… Can we lay down, Noct? You’ll feel better.”

Noctis gentles Prompto onto the bunk, and he shifts himself on top, perched precariously so he doesn’t put any weight on where Prompto is tender. “I’m not going to let anything hurt you. Not ever again.” _A_ _gain Prompto cries out as he falls from the train_ —”I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere,” he swears.

“Noct…” Prompto’s voice is threadbare, but thrumming with tension. “Noct, I want you to… I want you to put your weight on me. All of it.”

They had healed him. Used whatever they had on hand, but Noctis had been and still is, too strung tight, too worn to make more, and if he could force more of the magick, he would in a heartbeat. But he can’t. All that’d happened was a headache, piercing and blinding.

The longer you waited from the initial injury to heal it, the less effective potions and elixirs were. Prompto needed real medical attention ASAP, but they’d used all the potions that Ravus said they could spare. The potions they’d used had basically just closed all the open wounds, and left everything else.

But they still had to find the Crystal, and the majority of their items were still in the locked arsenal.

“Prom… It’ll hurt. I don’t want to hurt you. I just said—”

Prompto’s fingers dig into his shoulders like claws, trying to _force_ him down, and Noctis locks into position. Holding himself above, arms shaking  from all the exhaustion of the past few weeks. From the door, Ravus curses under his breath, chair scraping like he’s going to move to stop them. But he stops at the sound of Prompto’s voice.

“I _know_. I know, Noct, I know. It’s gonna hurt, but I need it. I need to feel you. And I  want it to be my choice. The hurt. I couldn’t choose anything, before. But I can, now, and I choose you. I want you to… be here with me. As close as I can get. Please, Noct. I know it’s selfish and I’m horrible for asking you to, after everything, but I just… I really need you,” and his voice is quiet, but certain, even as the tears finally spill. He pulls Noctis again, trying to bring him closer.

Noctis stares down at Prompto. Hell. Is this worse? To let him suffer, and withhold the one thing he’s asked for? “I’m sorry,” and Noctis’s voice is like gravel, aching, even as he lets go. Lets Prompto take all his weight, and the bed creaks or Prompto’s bones creak. 

Shocked whining gasp, Prompto jerks beneath him, body spasming with agony, except he asked Noctis for this. Noctis wants to give Prompto everything. Maybe he’s not sure if it’s right or good, and he absolutely doesn’t want to hurt Prompto, but he wants to give Prompto what he needs more than anything.

Noctis will give _everything_. Even if he has to do the one thing he swore he wouldn’t. If it’ll make Prompto feel safe or happy or real. But his breathing sounds like it hurts, and Noctis is causing it, and— _Do you really mean that, Noct?_ —he can hear it, now, Prompto’s pain beneath the Ardyn’s lilt. He’d almost killed Prom on the train. All he does is cause pain for everyone he loves, but once they get the Crystal, he doesn’t have to cause them any more grief. 

“Thank you,” Prompto breathes, and buries his face in Noctis’s shoulder. Holding tight enough Noctis might have bruises. He’d welcome them. “Thank you, Noct.”

“Yeah. I… I’ve got you, Prom. Whatever you need.” If he’s going to hurt Prompto, he’s going to do it with love. Going to do it as gently as he knows how.

So he wraps around Prompto like the Noctopus they say he is. Crushing him in the safest embrace he can manage, like how Gladio’s best hugs make him feel. And Prompto hisses his hurt, but clings all the tighter. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me again. Just—just stay by my side and I’ll stay by yours. And we’ll. We’ll be okay. I’ll be okay, if we can all just stay together.”

“I swear, Prom, I’m not going anywhere.” And he means it. Oh does he mean it, body pressed up against all Prompto’s hurts like he can shield him from Ardyn’s specter.

 

(And then, Noctis leaves him behind the very next day. Him, and all the others.)


End file.
